- Censor: A self-appointed snoophound who sticks his nose in other people's business.
- [on What's My Line?] I loved it from the start because, as I've told you again and again, I have a streak of pure ham in me and this appealed to every part of it. Within about six weeks, I was a national figure. As a publisher nobody knew who I was. How many people do you think look at the name on the spine of a book that has been published? They don't know whether a book's published by Scribner's or Harper's or Doubleday or Random House. What do they care? They want to know what's in the book and who wrote it. What difference does it make who published it? Even when I started writing books, and some people came to know my name, they didn't know what I looked like. But after you've been on a national television show for a little while, a popular one like "What's My Line?" everybody recognizes you. Everywhere that I went, people would yell, "Hey, Bennett." Truck drivers would stop and yell. Every taxi driver would greet me by name, and I loved it. Anybody who says that he doesn't like it, I think is a liar.
- [Howard] Dietz was a friend whom I grew up with and he's one of the funniest men I know. One day at MGM Louis Mayer complained that Dietz was leaving too early in the afternoons. Dietz countered, "But you have to remember, Mr. Mayer, I get in very late in the mornings."
- When Joan Crawford became a star, the first time they brought her to the [MGM] New York office, she was taken around the office and introduced to all the executives. She gave them all the icy star treatment, very uppety and condescending. When they came around to [Howard] Dietz, she tried the same tactics with him. Dietz stopped her cold with, "Don't give me any of that crap, Miss Crawford. I named you." Which was true. He was the one who picked Joan Crawford for her name.
- To my mind, a bad editor is a frustrated writer himself. So many editors are only editors because they haven't made it as writers. Their temptation is always to rewrite books because they think that they can do it better. We have to watch every editor on that.
- My philosophy is to try to bring joy into the world. Then you're being a good person. As I said, if you can leave people just a little bit happier after they leave you than they were when they met you, you are my idea of a valuable citizen. Especially today, anybody that can cheer people up a little and not indulge in this undermining handwringing that we're all doing.
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